


Continuance / Divergence

by Doranwen



Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode Related, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, post-episode
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2019-06-27 07:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15680421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/pseuds/Doranwen
Summary: Missing scenes, episode tags, or AUs for each episode.





	1. 1x01 Fresh Paint

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure at this point how far I'll get in writing these, but I wanted to explore the show through writing fic, one episode at a time, however short or long each one turns out.
> 
> I never post WIPs (I have a good number of them for various fandoms on my hard drive that probably will never be seen by the rest of the 'net, because I'd hate to post it and then have to edit it a bunch or disappoint everyone by not finishing), but this is something of a special case since each chapter is self-contained. (I did consider posting this as a series - and then decided that it would end up being too many tiny fics, and I hadn't a clue what I'd use for titles anyway. So a single fic it is.)
> 
> This is possibly the only time I've posted without a fixed title; the one I'm currently using is definitely open to change if I can find something I like better.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A missing scene from 1x01 Fresh Paint. What was Jerry's take on the exchange between Sam and Andy?

"I'm glad you got your collar, but I think I'll buy my own drinks tonight." Sam raised a glass and stared at Andy McNally.

Her hopeful look faded, and she muttered, "Okay," as she quickly left.

Jerry stopped pretending he hadn't been listening in. "Ouch."

"You want to start in too?" Sam asked. "Because you should've known better than to burn me like that."

"Yeah, no, I know. Sorry, man."

Sam just shook his head and took another drink.

Jerry's curiosity got the better of him. "What tip was she thanking you for, anyway? I didn't hear the full story, just that they caught the guy from the Dunn Avenue shooting."

"Yeah, I saw the kid run into another building, told her where to find him." Sam sipped his drink again.

Jerry raised an eyebrow. "Wait, so she arrests you, helps blow your cover, and you help her catch her guy."

"She came into the locker room and yelled at me. Asked for my help. Easier to give her what she wanted, get her to go away." Sam drained the rest of his glass and motioned for another.

Jerry raised his eyebrows even higher, but listened to the voice in his head that told him to quit while he was ahead. No point in reminding Sam again of his part in the whole fiasco. The anger was nicely directed elsewhere, and wasn't that interesting.

He sipped from his own glass, looking forward again. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the glance Sam gave the girl from across the room. Yeah, the next few months were **definitely** going to be interesting…


	2. 1x02 Mercury Retrograde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU ending to 1x02 Mercury Retrograde. What if the almost-kiss went a slightly different direction?

"I can't do this. I'm sorry. It's just that this is my first week at work."

He's still got her right hand in his, but she's pushing him back with the other one. Her words are a dash of ice water to his system. "Yeah, no, I get it. Training officers and rookies, it's a big no-no. Completely against the rules."

She steps back, appraising him with a quirk of the eyebrow. "I thought you didn't have any rules."

He grins a little before letting it fade. "Well, breaking this one could really mess up your career. Saw it happen to a rookie the year after I was cut loose. She ended up moving to another city to get away from it."

She's sobered up at that, making a face. "Wow, uh…"

"Plus, I'd miss getting to train you."

Her eyebrows go up again. "I thought you didn't ask to train a rookie."

"I didn't." He smiles. He'd tell her she's going to make one hell of a cop, but the way she looked when he told her she acted like a cop, well… He'd rather dole out the praise in small bits, stretch it out. And there was no point in swelling her head with pride, anyway. She **is** still a rookie, after all.

She looks as if the words trapped behind her mouth might come spilling out any moment, and he wonders when that expression on her face went from incredibly annoying to appealing.

"So," he begins, "we should go home. Pretend this didn't happen. We go back to training officer and rookie. Six months down the road, we're free to explore this. If you still want to."

"Right," she says, nodding. She's turning to go when he acts on a sudden impulse.

"But…" he calls out.

She stops, turns back to face him.

"You know I color outside the lines."

Her eyes grow a little wide.

"I'm also good at undercover, which means I can play a part well."

She's staring at him, frozen.

"So if you decide you want to try this, I bet we could keep it from everyone at 15 until you're cut loose." He smiles at her again. Reaches into his pocket, finds the remnants of a napkin from lunch. Scribbles his number on it. Hands it to her.

She's still staring at him.

"It's your call. We're good either way. See you tomorrow, McNally." He smiles at her one last time before climbing into his car.

He takes his time unwinding that evening. The stress of being held at gunpoint has exhausted him but he can't bring himself to admit that he's waiting for something before he sleeps. That resolution goes out the window the moment his phone rings an hour later. The number isn't in his contacts, and he takes a deep breath just before he answers. "This is Sam."

"I have one condition." It's her voice, all confident and determined.

He can't help but grin. "Name it."

"We take this slow. I don't want to spend months pretending that we're all good if we rush it and it goes south fast."

"I didn't think you were the slow type of girl."

"Yeah, well, I'm not usually the 'break the rules' type of girl either, so…"

"New job, new you?" he asks.

"Haven't quite decided. Maybe." There's a pause. "See you tomorrow?" Her voice is suddenly hesitant.

Parts of him want to go find her and follow through with the kiss they had nearly begun, but reason kicks in. 'Slow' it is, then. "Bright and early."

"Good night, then."

"Night, McNally." He holds the phone in his hand for half a minute afterward, grinning like an idiot. It's just the thrill of the forbidden, he tells himself, and tries not to think about how much of a lie that might be. The next six months are going to be so much fun…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still feeling my way into the character voices; hopefully I've gotten them mostly in character!
> 
> This is one of several fic ideas that's been rattling around in my mind (I've got a growing list). Haven't decided if it's worth turning into something more than a oneshot at this point. This one could get really long if I go through a lot of the cases on the show as I develop their relationship…


	3. 1x03 Fite Nite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A drabble from Oliver's POV after the fight. Because he's the kind of guy who's there for a brother—or sister—when it's needed.

The commotion across the room catches Oliver's ears, along with half the crowd. He turns to see Andy McNally pulling her father off another retired cop. Her face is a mixture of embarrassment and humiliation, and his gut clenches in sympathy. A few people turn their attention elsewhere when they realize the fight is over, but not quickly, not enough.

So Oliver calls out to Nash, offering congratulations, and bragging about her to the other divisions and the top brass. If his voice is a little louder than it might normally be, well, that's just because of the crowd, right?


	4. 1x04 Signals Crossed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An episode-related drabble for 1x04 Signals Crossed. Because I think Sam would have noticed this, even if he never brought it up to anyone.

A week after the gun bust, Sam finally gets around to reading the rookies' statements. Epstein's is fairly straightforward. Came just in time to save the two women—and Sam thinks that might cancel out a good deal of his anger at him for going along with such a harebrained scheme.

McNally's is a lot longer. He reads her description of being held at gunpoint calmly enough, until he sees the words "he checked me for a wire". His blood runs cold as his imagination fills in the rest of the scene. It's minutes before he can unclench his fist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Partly inspired by the ABC Behind-the-Scenes interview with Missy Peregrym where she discusses the filming of Signals Crossed. Her words below:
> 
> "…when Andy gets into a tough situation…I didn't expect to feel so genuinely violated after filming the scenes. All of the actors were incredibly respectful and their performances were great so it wasn't because of them. It was the situation that really bothered me. When you film scenes, especially ones with stunts, it can take a long time to get through it. So even though you're acting, sometimes it feels very real when you live it out for hours on end."
> 
> And partly inspired by this excellent fic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6235989/1/punching-bag


	5. 1x05 Broad Daylight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of what Sam was thinking during the scene in Boyko's office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I promise I won't write only drabbles the whole time!) This one's not much, just my take on Sam's thoughts from what we can see of his face when Andy admits her gun wasn't loaded.

"My gun wasn't loaded," Andy told Boyko.

Sam's eyebrows crawled up to his forehead, and his heart nearly stopped. She had bluffed her way into getting Noah to put down the gun, knowing full well she had **nothing** to stop him with? _Unbelievable._

"I forgot to load my gun this morning," she added.

Sam blinked, and then exhaled sharply when the realization hit him. Luke had been talking to her, and then he had interrupted… It wasn't an excuse, but it was a contributing factor. Had everything gone south, he might never have forgiven himself. _I could've lost her today…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally, I think the next thought he'd have would be that Luke let her walk out of there and should have seen she hadn't finished loading her gun. But getting into what Luke did wrong from Sam's POV is just opening a can of worms. :)


	6. 1x06 Bullet Proof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What was Oliver thinking while Sam took that call from McNally? Maybe something like this… A quadruple drabble for 1x06 Bullet Proof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lifted all the dialogue straight from the episode, naturally. Oliver's thoughts, on the other hand, are my own creation.
> 
> I debated writing an episode tag, but I've read several good ones that featured the post-ep plumbing scene, so I thought Oliver's head might be more interesting to visit.

"I thought you were with Callaghan," Sam says.

Oliver's expression doesn't change; he's got a much better poker face than the other guys give him credit for. He just finds it easier to use when he's not playing poker. Like right now, listening to Sammy talk to his rookie.

"McNally, I already have a headache."

Oliver does too, but Sammy's got it worse. And hungover Sam is **not** the best of company. If McNally had any sense for self-preservation, she'd have found a way to get out of riding with him. Oliver suspects she got herself detailed to homicide for the day just because of that.

"The doctor said? The doctor is not a cop."

McNally's not that bad at the job. Actually, she's going to be a great cop, once she's gotten a few years under her belt. But damn if she doesn't have a talent for getting herself in the craziest situations.

"Where's Callaghan?"

And for some reason, it seems, she'd rather call her TO than her boyfriend over this one. It makes sense, Oliver guesses—she probably doesn't want Callaghan to see how badly she's screwed up.

"And I care because, uh…"

Oliver snorts mentally. He's got her there. With the headache he's got, Sam's only going to be interested in getting his paperwork done and getting out of there.

"All right, all right. All right. Calm down," Sam tells her. "What do you need?"

Well, well. Since when did Sam Swarek come to the rescue of rookies, particularly while suffering a hangover? This warranted eyes on Sam, not merely ears. Oliver turns slightly to watch Sam respond to the next thing. From his incredulous look and barely muttered oath, it's a doozy of a request. Oliver quickly turns back to his paperwork when Sam swivels to bring him back into his line of sight. When Sam pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it, then glances over at Oliver, the other man decides he can risk a return look. 

"Ah. Yeah," Sam finally says.

Oliver's never been more grateful for his poker face. His eyebrows would be climbing past his receding hairline right about now, otherwise. He can't believe what his senses are telling him. Just what kind of hold does McNally have over Sam, anyway? He'll definitely have to keep a close eye on all of this, if it's what he suspects…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm looking for a beta reader for an AU beginnings fic - main ship is McSwarek, other ships tbd yet. It's going to be long - I've got over 7k written and have barely gotten started. I've got a pretty rough outline that takes it most of the way to the happy ending, but really need someone to bounce ideas off, talk things over, check characterization (one of the trickier areas for me), more of an alpha than a beta reader (though I'll take a beta reader too, when it gets to that point). If I have that, I can promise I **will** finish the whole long thing - but I don't post WIPs on here other than this fic (because each chapter of this one stands alone), so none of it will make it on here unless/until it's finished. If you're at all interested, take a look at [my Dreamwidth post](https://doranwen.dreamwidth.org/246028.html) for the first bit (unedited) and more info.


	7. 1x07 Hot and Bothered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An AU of The Scene (you know which one) in 1x07 Hot and Bothered. Because as many times as it's been done before, I had to write my own, lol.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, there's a thousand variations of this one out there, and some I know for sure are better than this one. But as one author put it in their author's notes somewhere (probably an ff.n fic), this is practically a rite of passage. Plus it was the next ep, and while I did think of writing something else for 1x07, this was what came to mind the clearest. So I wrote it. It's the longest one of these yet, so hopefully it's a good one. :)

Sam wasn't expecting anyone to come to his door that evening of the heatwave, particularly not Andy McNally. So when he opens the door and asks if she wants to talk, he doesn't anticipate being pushed against the wall, her mouth planted on his. His hands come up involuntarily, cupping the back of her head (her hair is as soft as he imagined it those times he pretends he's never thought about). Her lips are insistent and eager, and he can feel his whole body responding.

However, he may be a guy, but he's not **that** emotionally dense. The little voice in the back of his mind reminds him of how she looked in the locker room only a couple hours before ( _I'm great totally fine_ and the glazed expression bouncing off his eyes and away). And then there's the way her whole body vibrated when he asked her if she wanted to talk, the trembling just below the skin that she's masking with frantic kisses and gropes. She's about three sentences away from tears, he thinks, and he'd rather get them out **before** sex than after. (He tries not to think about why it's different with her, why it actually matters. Monica's words to him earlier come to the forefront and he shoves them out; he's not going to deal with that tonight. Maybe ever. He **really** doesn't know.)

All of this is battling against the rising tide of heat in his body, but it gets a major boost to its defenses when her fingers grasp the bottom of his shirt. The graze of her fingertips against the bottom of his ribs is a glass of cold water dousing the flames, and his hands swiftly capture hers. He bends her fingers back into fists inside his, gently. "Andy?" he asks. (He needs a little distance but using 'McNally' would build a wall across the damn road.)

She's fidgeting, trying to lick at his neck, eyes everywhere but on his.

"Andy, talk to me." He brings his hands up, hers still trapped in them, pushes her shoulders back so she can't reach him with her mouth.

She's almost shaking, her face twisting. She tries to tug her hands out of his, but he holds firm, presses his thumbs against them in smooth strokes.

"Andy…" He breathes her name into the warm candlelight surrounding them, and apparently that's her resonant frequency because suddenly she's quivering and crumbling under his hands. He drops her hands, wraps his around her arms as she sinks onto the edge of the bed. She melts into him, and he lets her, tipping her head against his chest. Her sobs are muffled against his collarbone and the only thing he can do is hold her and run furrows through her hair with his fingers. "Talk to me, Andy," he orders again, adding a little more insistence to it.

Her breathing slows from gasps to a steady inhale-exhale pace, and finally to where only the slight rise of her shoulders betrays her. "I keep seeing his face," she begins, face half-buried in Sam's shirt. "The eyes, looking at me. And I'm hearing the shots again and again, watching him fall, all the blood pouring out."

She's barely finished her sentence when the power flickers and returns to life with a roar, stereo and TV blasting. Sam holds her for a moment, strokes her back. He's about to move when her phone rings. He'd let her answer it, but she's only started to get this out of her and he doesn't need her walls slamming back up with a vengeance. He takes the device from her hand as she's pulling it out of her pocket, hits the button to ignore the call, and throws it on the bedside table. She doesn't move, and he runs his fingers through her hair one more time. To calm her, he tells himself. (It's definitely not because every brush of his fingertips against her scalp sends a jolt to his system.) "Help me turn off everything and we'll pick this back up?" he offers. It's a bargain and suggestion all in one, and she takes it with an nod.

He points her in the direction of the kitchen, and heads to the living room to switch off the offending appliances. They're back to candlelight when he meets her in the doorway. He extends an arm out to point the way, and she follows it to his bed, crawling on top of the covers and pulling her knees up to her chin. Sam scoots the pillow behind his back and leans against the headboard. He studies her for a second, but she's retreating into her mind again. "What's going through your head?" he asks.

She sits for a couple seconds, as if she were deaf to his words, but then opens her mouth. "He was alive… and now he's not. And I did that. I killed him. I killed him." The last sentence comes out almost in a sob.

"You didn't have a choice," Sam tells her quietly. She looks at him with haunted eyes, hugging her knees, and he reaches for her without thinking. She scoots up with the gentle pressure of his hands urging her on, until he can envelop her in his arms. "He made that choice for you when he took Oliver's gun and shot him with it. At that point, one of you was going to shoot the other."

"I feel like there should've been another way. Something I could've done differently—"

"Had you done something differently, you'd probably be dead." Sam watches the words hit her, causing a flinch. "He made that choice, Andy. Not you. The only thing you could do was to save Aisha's and Oliver's lives, and you did that."

She nods against his shirt, and he realizes his hand's in her hair again—for how long? because he honestly doesn't remember putting it there—and his fingertips are twisting strands of hair into knots as they draw figure eights by her temple. The heat inside has died down and the candles cast flickering shadows on the walls, but she's not moving from his arms. He'd love to pick back up where they had left off, but he has to know—

"Why did you come to me?"

The question dangles in the air for several heartbeats. "Because…" she begins finally, "I couldn't stop—everything in my head, seeing him—and I knew if I found you, you'd make it better, somehow."

He's not surprised at the depth of her trust, hasn't been since she stood in a parking lot and told him she wasn't afraid inside a drug lord's den because he was there. Hearing it this time, though, well—it's possible he's feeling more than he wants to admit.

He's pulled out of his thoughts with her words, nearly whispered. "I just want to forget."

"You won't," he tells her. It's not intended to be harsh. He's tried the same thing, and it doesn't work. "You can try to push it out, but it'll come back. The only thing that works is time. You won't forget, but it'll get easier."

She straightens upright, and he loosens his arms so they're draped around her waist. Her eyes trace the outline of his face, lingering on his jaw, and he suspects she wants to try anyway. He's not opposed to that at all, but as long as Callaghan's in the picture it has the potential to get messier than he wants to handle. He likes being her TO, riding with her each day, watching her grow as a cop. Callaghan's not a petty guy, but Sam doesn't want to know what the detective would do if he learned someone slept with his girlfriend.

"So…" he says, trailing off. He's not really sure what to say. _Do you want to—have sex? stay here tonight? do this?_ —whatever this is.

She saves him the trouble of finding the right words by pressing her mouth to his. This time it's hesitant and slow, and he kisses her back firmly before cradling her face in his hands. "If we're going to do this," he says, "there's a phone call you need to make."

She ducks her head as red creeps up her cheeks. He picks up the phone from the bedside table and holds it out to her. Her fingers gradually curl around it and bring it to herself, but she's otherwise frozen in place. "Luke's a good guy," she says, head still bowed.

Sam nods. "Yeah, he is." He's an honest guy; he can acknowledge this much. "But he's not the one you want right now, is he? Or you'd have gone to find him instead."

Her shoulders hunch forward as she curls up on herself, but she says nothing.

Sam's heart sinks a little, but he knows it has to be her choice. "I'll be in the kitchen. Come find me when you're done, if you still want to," he tells her, and kisses her forehead before getting off the bed.

He grabs a bottle of beer from the fridge. It's cool, if not cold; his milk's probably still OK. He perches on one of the stools at the island in the middle and twists the lid off. He can hear the sound of her voice from his bedroom but it's too low to catch the words. He takes sips and tries to read the newspaper he left on the counter this morning, but he keeps reading the same paragraph over and over without remembering what it said.

A faint sound from the doorway catches his attention, and she's standing there. He leaves the bottle on the counter and walks over to her. His face must've had the question written all over it, because she answers, "I broke up with him. You were right," she admits. Her eyes flit between his and the rest of the kitchen, until he slides his hands on either side of her jaw.

"Are you sure?" he breathes, mouth inches from hers.

"Yeah," she replies, and closes the distance.

It's the third time she's kissed him that night, and it's like that stupid nursery tale with the bears. First time too fast, second time too slow, third time just right. They make out all the way back into the bedroom, and her arms wrap around his neck for a moment. This time when she reaches down for his shirt, he doesn't stop her.

In the back of his mind, he wonders what the next morning will be like, worries he'll lose her anyway. He catches her gaze with his own and smiles at her, letting whatever he's been feeling shine out from his eyes. She pauses for a second and smiles back. It reaches her eyes too, and he knows then that they'll be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The AU beginnings fic I've been writing is up to 11k and I'm definitely needing characterization checking and some idea bouncing before I can keep going. If you know **anyone** who has seen at least the first couple seasons of Rookie Blue and would be willing to help, let me know! I've also got three other Rookie Blue WIPs that need the same sort of help - AUs for 2x03 and S4, as well as the next chapter for this fic. Unfortunately I have a difficult time writing a lot of things without an alpha reader - so if you want to see more, you may want to volunteer your services. These fics will likely languish on my hard drive otherwise (and this isn't a ransom note for them - I literally cannot continue without help). You can see snippets from each AU [here](https://doranwen.dreamwidth.org/2018/10/09/), if you want to pick through to see which appeals to you more.
> 
> [Rookie Blue community on Dreamwidth](https://rookieblue.dreamwidth.org/) \- comments welcomed by all fans, whether you have a DW account or not


	8. 1x08 Honor Roll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A post-ep drabble wherein Noelle and Oliver have Sam figured out. Because those two, of anyone, would have a pretty good idea of what that display on the mat might've been about…

"—And Sam was holding Callaghan down on the mat and kept pounding at him, way more than he needed to," said Noelle as she regaled Oliver with all the details from the retraining exercise the night before. "You wouldn't happen to have any ideas on that, would you?" Her eyes met Oliver's knowingly.

Oliver snorted, laying his head back against the lumpy hospital pillow. "I might have a few."

"Three guesses and the first two don't count?" Noelle asked with a slight smirk.

"Something like that." He chuckled to himself. "Sammy's got it bad," he mused.

"Damn right he does…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a new chapter to this! I've been writing Rookie Blue, never fear - it's just mostly been long WIPs that aren't finished yet. And then I started one that I thought was going to go in this slot - and it turned out to be too big of a story for that, so I'll be posting it separately.


	9. 1x09 Girlfriend of the Year

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Traci was a little wiser when it came to Andy and her romantic life? An AU of their conversation after hanging the painting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Traci seems to generally have a lot of wisdom, until it comes to Andy and Luke, where she seems to be completely oblivious to Andy's efforts to do all the right things in her relationship (without actually being in love with Luke). If she didn't suggest putting Sam "on ice", things might've turned out rather differently…
> 
> This isn't super long (and I cut it off before it could turn into another "must post separately" fic like _you may be a chance I need to take_ ), but it's the first words I've written in a few weeks, so it feels good to open up those pipes and get the words flowing again.
> 
> Obviously, I borrowed a few words from the episode for their dialogue, including some from the kitchen scene (reworked to fit).

"Yeah, I hooked up with Sam."

"What???" Traci had not been oblivious to Andy's nervous behavior tics; she _had_ known the girl for a year, after all. There was a reason she kept poking the "normal, settled-down" at Andy—eventually the other girl would crack. She just did not expect _that_ to be what emerged as a result.

Andy's assent was muffled by the sip of wine she took. "I mean, I didn't sleep with him. I _totally_ would have…"

Traci was still having trouble processing this news. "When???" How could something this big have slipped under her nose without Andy spilling the beans? Traci prided herself on being a good secret keeper, but everyone knew Andy was terrible at it. (Dov was worse. Or maybe Chris. Actually, Traci thought she and Gail were the only ones who could properly keep a secret, of all of their group of rookies. But that was beside the point.)

"The night of the blackout!"

Well, that explained it. The rest of them had been working all week, while Andy got an enforced vacation. Traci had been so busy between work and Leo that she hadn't had much time to talk with Andy until much later. But there was a more important question. "Why _didn't_ you?" Swarek _was_ sex on legs, after all.

"Because… the lights came on," said Andy with a shrug, but her eyes told a different story.

Traci leaned back in her chair, watching Andy contemplatively. "That's all?" She had a hunch…

Andy shifted her eyes again. "Well… Luke called."

Aha, there it was. And that said something very, very interesting. Had Luke not called, would Andy have actually gone through with it? Traci wished she knew. What she did know was that Andy was definitely attracted to her training officer, and the attraction was strong enough that she nearly had sex with him despite having a different boyfriend. A niggling thought poked its way into her conscious mind: what did that say about Andy's attraction to Luke?

Traci leaned back in her chair and eyed Andy contemplatively. Come to think of it, when had Andy ever shown any serious attraction to Luke? Oh, she fawned appropriately, made all the right girlfriend moves, but Traci knew what the difference between "in love" and "going through the motions" looked like. "Fake it till you make it" was a great motto, but there were some things that it didn't work for. Like sticking with a boyfriend other than the person to whom one had a visceral attraction. (She wondered what Swarek felt about it all.)

"What? You're staring," Andy complained.

"I'm thinking," Traci retorted.

"About?"

"Whether you're with the right guy." Traci took another sip of her own wine.

"Of course I am. I'm happy with Luke. I care about him, he cares about me, and I want to make it work."

"Mmm," Traci hummed noncommittally. She was starting to notice that the list of reasons Andy gave were lacking a key element.

"What??? You make it sound like that's a bad thing."

"Noooo," Traci drew out, "but I do have to wonder a couple things."

"Such as?"

Traci looked Andy directly in the eyes. "Are you in love with Luke?"

Andy made a squawk of protest.

Traci barrelled on. "And do you feel passionate about him? Because, I gotta admit, I'm not hearing either of those from you."

"I do love Luke! And we're plenty passionate," Andy defended.

"But you're not in love with him," Traci pointed out. Andy looked away; Traci scored that as a win for accuracy. "And I'm not just talking about good sex. You talk about Luke like he's just a good friend."

"I do not!"

"'I'm happy with my friend; we care about each other, and I want to make our friendship work,'" Traci quoted with only a few tweaks. "Sounds like it to me."

Andy stared at her glass of wine. "You think I'm making a mistake."

"I think you're trying so hard to have a grown-up relationship that you forgot to make sure your feelings were on board with it." Traci took another sip. "I'm assuming you thought this thing with Sam was a mistake, because you didn't tell me about it." She gave Andy a pointed glare.

"Yeah, best mistake of my life," Andy said with a little laugh.

Traci side-eyed her. "See, that's what I mean. Luke doesn't do that to you."

"What, you're suggesting I date Sam?" Andy's eyebrows soared higher than Traci was used to seeing.

"What I'm suggesting—" Traci said firmly, "—is that I'm not sure if your feelings actually match the relationships you're in, and if they're not, it's just going to cause problems in the long run."

"So I probably shouldn't tell Luke, then," said Andy.

Traci snorted. "Hell no. Did you really need to ask?"

"No," Andy said with a sigh. "I just don't like keeping a secret like that from him."

"That is the _least_ of your worries right now," Traci declared. "You need to figure out a few things before you continue any further."

"Like…"

"Like what you really feel for Sam Swarek," Traci suggested. She took another sip, watching Andy's face react to that line. It was going to be a long evening at this rate, she decided. She mentally thanked Dex for having Leo for a few days, and resigned herself to being low on sleep at work tomorrow. Sometimes friends came first, especially when they were romantically clueless…


End file.
